http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/daily/may99/embryo0523.htm
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 23, 1999; Page A1
A presidentially appointed ethics panel has decided to recommend
that the
federal government begin funding some research on human embryos,
saying
the moral cost of destroying embryos in research is outweighed
by the
social good that could come from the work.
Citing recent evidence that some human embryo cells have the
potential to
grow into replacement tissues to treat a wide variety of chronic
diseases,
the National Bioethics Advisory Commission has concluded that it
is
essentially unfair to millions of patients for Congress to
continue its
broad, four-year-old funding ban on human embryo research.
Instead, federal rules should be written that ensure an
appropriate
measure of protection and respect for human embryos, according
to a draft
version of the report and interviews with commissioners and
others. Those
rules would allow federally financed researchers to conduct
studies on
leftover embryos from fertility clinics if the embryos were no
longer
wanted by the parents who made them.
"These are very difficult judgments to make, but it's a
balancing act,"
said Harold T. Shapiro, chairman of the bioethics commission and
president
of Princeton University. "We have moral obligations to the
future health
and welfare of people, and we need to balance these with, at the
very
least, the symbolic moral obligation we have to the embryo."
The recommendations go further than those recently proposed by
the
National Institutes of Health. Those call for federally funded
research on
laboratory-grown human embryo cells, but not on human embryos
themselves.
The more conservative NIH recommendations already have drawn
fire from
some members of Congress. Observers said the bioethics
commission's report
is likely to escalate the long-standing political tussle over
the moral
status of embryos and the wrenching national debate over
abortion.
"I have a sense that this is going to be one of the liveliest
debates on
the Senate and the House floors this session," said Sen. Arlen
Specter
(R-Pa.), who last fall held a hearing on stem-cell research.
Contentious as the issue is, there are signs that public opinion
may be
moving toward support of at least limited embryo research.
"Patients and their families faced with life-threatening and
chronically
disabling diseases want science to move as quickly as possible,"
said
Daniel Perry, executive director of the Alliance for Aging
Research and
chief of a new coalition of patient groups advocating research
on human
embryonic stem cells, the embryo-derived cells that have
generated so much
recent excitement.
The new group, Patients' Coalition for Urgent Research, or CURe,
includes
more than two dozen national organizations, such as the American
Cancer
Society and the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation. At an
inaugural
event last week, the group released poll results indicating that
74
percent of Americans support human embryonic stem-cell research.
"We're not naive and we know there's not going to be a cure
tomorrow,"
Perry said. "But it's a good thing for federal funding to be
there because
it means the research will be done more quickly and it will be
more
accountable to the public."
The commission's report, due to be released next month, is the
second
federal ethics analysis in less than five years to conclude that
certain
kinds of research on human embryos warrant federal support. The
previous
one, by a panel convened by the NIH, was partially approved by
President
Clinton in 1994 but then rejected by Congress, which passed an
appropriations rider blocking all such funding and has renewed
that ban
annually ever since.
The 17-member bioethics commission calls for a more limited
range of
embryo experiments than did the 1994 panel. It does not support
the use of
federal funds to create new human embryos just for research, for
example -
the single provision that Clinton rejected in 1994 - and it
offers
specific policy guidelines to keep studies within narrow
scientific and
ethical bounds.
But the biggest difference between 1994 and 1999, experts said,
is that
the benefits of embryo research are now far less theoretical. If
the
morality of human embryo research is pegged in part to the
benefits that
are likely to accrue to sick and dying people, as many
ethicists,
religious leaders and others believe, then the tipping point of
acceptability appears to have been reached, the report
concludes.
"This research is allied with a noble cause," the draft report
states,
"and any taint that might attach from the source of the stem
cells
diminishes in proportion to the potential good which the
research may
yield."
The commission's report is still undergoing revisions. But
interviews with
commissioners and others involved in its crafting indicate that
a clear
consensus exists for some basic recommendations.
For now, the report will say, federal funding should be made
available
only for research on embryos made by in vitro fertilization for
infertile
couples. A single cycle of IVF can result in the creation of a
dozen or
more embryos, of which three or four typically are transferred
to the
womb. The rest are frozen for later efforts. Under the report's
recommendation, if any are left over when the couple stops
trying to get
pregnant, the couple could donate them for federal research (or
have them
destroyed or keep them frozen indefinitely).
Federally funded scientists would be allowed to ask parents for
permission
to conduct studies on their embryos only after the parents had
independently decided to abandon them. And if any compensation
were to be
allowed, it would be very limited.
With protections such as these in place, the commission
concludes, parents
- and not the federal government - would be "morally
responsible" for the
embryos' demise.
Most commissioners also favor creation of a national oversight
board that
would be responsible for ensuring that only those embryo
experiments
deemed most worthy get federal support.
The commission concedes that it cannot settle the debate over
embryos'
intrinsic moral value. But for the purposes of making public
policy, it
seeks to find an ethical middle ground by balancing the
potential harm to
embryos against the potential benefits to patients.
The commission notes, for example, that even many conservatives
support
abortion under certain circumstances. "Conservatives who accept
that
killing a fetus is permissible where it is necessary to save the
life of
the mother should agree with liberals that it is also
permissible to
destroy embryos where it is necessary to save people."
The new analysis comes at a time of growing public clamor for
full-bore
pursuit of research into human embryonic and fetal stem cells -
cell types
discovered just last year that have the potential to grow into
many kinds
of tissues. Researchers envision cultivating the cells into
replacement
neurons for patients with Parkinson's disease, insulin-secreting
cells for
diabetics, and heart muscle cells for victims of heart attacks,
among
other uses.
But it wasn't only advances in science that led the commission
to decide
it is time to invite federal investment in embryo research, said
Eric
Meslin, the commission's executive director. Since the 1994 NIH
report,
Meslin said, people have been reconsidering their feelings about
embryo
research. A growing number seem to have found room within their
personal
belief systems to justify limited amounts of such research -
including
many religious leaders who testified to the commission.
"The community has been coming to the view that these sources of
cells are
ethically acceptable with a number of protections put in place,"
Meslin
said.
Many also favor a federal presence in the stem-cell field so
research
priorities will be selected on the basis of what is best for the
nation's
health and welfare, instead of on the basis of maximum
profitability for
the companies now pursuing the technology with private money.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the professional
organization that oversees fertility clinics, where most of the
nation's
uncounted thousands of spare embryos are stored in freezers,
expressed
support for the commission's conclusions.
"We would certainly welcome federal funding and oversight for
research
involving human embryos and human embryonic stem cells, and we
would hope
that Congress would act on the commission's recommendation,"
said Sean
Tipton, a spokesman for the organization in Washington.
But others, including antiabortion activist John
Cavanaugh-O'Keefe of the
Laytonsville, Md.-based Eugenics Watch, vowed to fight the move.
And
congressional support is hardly assured. Rep. Jay Dickey
(R-Ark.), a
co-author of the rider that has banned embryo research since
1995, said
through a spokesman that he strongly opposes the commission's
views.
"Any NIH action to initiate funding of such research would
violate both
the letter and spirit of the federal law banning federal support
for
research in which human embryos are harmed or destroyed," Dickey
wrote in
a recent letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E.
Shalala.
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
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